Hello, list. This is Marvin, just temporarily using a different email address. My own bn is in the hands of the HW techs for some much-needed maintenance (namely, a battery replacement and to get its charge port fixed because
the ac adapter wouldn't connect even though it was plugged in). My roommate also has an mPower, but it's running 7.2, so keymail on this thing can't access gmail, so I had gmail start forwarding messages to my aol account, which
this bn can access just fine. This also means I can't use keychat, since it doesn't exist on this machine.
Anyway, it turns out that vtext.com is for Verizon numbers. Had it not been for Alex Hall's former gateway2somewhere website, I never would've known that texts could be sent by email. I'm not sure what happened to that site,
by the way, but fortunately Alex had a link to another site where he got the necessary data to allow people to send texts to people using a web form.
To send a text message via email, you have to know what company the person receiving your message has phone service with. After that, it's a simple case of finding the correct carrier address in the list of phone companies on
the site I wrote this message to tell you all about.
The site is www.emailtextmessages.com. On that site, navigate by heading to find the service provider of the person you want to text (for example, mine is Sprint). It would say, for example,
[email protected]. This is the email address you type in the send to field. Put the person's number where it says tendigitphonenumber. Just the numbers, no dashes, spaces, or parentheses.
Type in a subject, then write a short message. Unfortunately, it's not possible to attach files to text messages using this method, so don't try that. Like this list, attachments are not received. The reason I say to write a
short message is because some, if not most or all, carriers will cut the message after a few hundred characters.
This method of texting definitely works. I can speak from personal experience. I was sitting outside on a bench at my college in November two years ago waiting for my city's local transportation for the disabled (San Antonio's
ViaTrans) to show up, and they were extremely late, and I was freezing my butt off (the bench being made of metal, and I only wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a windbreaker in 30 degree and drizzle conditions)!
Anyway, it was during my third attempt to call them and ask where my van was that the worst possible thing happened. My cell phone died! I was just about to ask a passerby if they would let me borrow their phone when I came
across Alex's site, and the texting facility.
I quickly used the form to try to text my Dad, asking him to come pick me up,
then prayed with all my heart that the message had gotten through. To my great
relief, about a half hour later, Dad showed up and brought me home.
It was during that trip that I put his unique texting address into my address list so I could easily text him in the future. This, by the way, I would advise you to do if you text someone very often. This way, you won't have
to keep looking up their phone company's unique carrier address. You could just type your friend's name into the send to field, then write your subject and message.
Anyway, I'm sorry for the length of this message. I just wanted to tell you the story of how I texted for the first time and how the procedure works. I hope this helps some of you out there. It's not keychat, but it's
certainly the next best thing to emailing someone.
May the Force be with you.
Marvin
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